Butterfly Dream: Moonlight Haiku by Djurdja Vukelic-Rozic

English Original

all these shiny roofs

and just enough moonlight

to tuck in every tile

First Prize, Rangitawa Publishing Haiku and Humor Contest, 2013 

Djurdja Vukelic-Rozic

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

所有這些閃亮的屋頂

和剛好夠用的月光

涵蓋每一塊磁磚

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

所有这些闪亮的屋顶

和刚好够用的月光

涵盖每一块磁砖

Bio Sketch

Djurdja Vukelic-Rozic was born in 1956, lives in the town of Ivanic Grad, Croatia, edits the magazine IRIS, translates and writes poetry, humorous sketches, short stories, haiku and haibun. So far she has published twenty books and translated a number of collections and anthologies into English. And her poetry has received thirty awards.

A Room of My Own: Prime Minister's Words Tanka

dragging his feet

through one apology

after another

Prime Minister's words suspended 

in the hot air of Parliament

FYI: The Tyee, September 28: Will Trudeau Survive the Nazi Affair?: In a season of stumbles, he’s added one more by slow-walking his apologies.

Yesterday Justin Trudeau apologized for unwittingly honouring a former Nazi in Canada’s Parliament.

He apologized to the Jewish community, the Ukrainians, the Roma and everyone else who suffered from the scourge of Adolf Hitler and his mad-dog fascism. But it was a day late and strangely hollow.

Justin Trudeau’s no-show in Parliament on the day House Speaker Anthony Rota resigned in disgrace, is the story here. It marks a new low in the PM’s political career, even though he took every question in question period today.

Instead of standing up to the barrage of insults, demands and denunciations that he knew was coming, he sent House leader Karina Gould into the fray to take the heat. In a voice sometimes reduced to a whisper, Gould did her best to take one for the team.

And for more, Canadian Foreign Policy Institute, September 28: NaziGate in Parliament

Yves Engler's interview with Richard Sanders on the roots, relevance and rationale of NaziGate in Parliament. In 2021 Sanders authored Cold War Canada: Ongoing state support for East European émigré groups with deep fascist roots 

Added:

first moon festival

since my father passed away ...

a taste of mooncake

Added: 

another year ...

the scent of chrysanthemums

in father's absence

Added:

the cries

of broken English, Chinese

and jumbled words ...

my old friend gapes out

the nursing home window

Butterfly Dream: Crowded Cafe Haiku by Bob Lucky

English Original

crowded café

a fly goes in and out

of our conversation                            

tinywords, 20:2, 1 Dec 2020

Bob Lucky           

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

擁擠的咖啡館

在我們交談的期間

一隻蒼蠅飛進飛出

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

拥挤的咖啡馆

在我们交谈的期间

一只苍蝇飞进飞出

Bio Sketch

Bob Lucky is the author of Ethiopian Time (Red Bird Chapbooks, 2014), Conversation Starters in a Language No One Speaks (SurVision Books, 2018), My Thology: Not Always True But Always Truth (Cyberwit, 2019), and the e-chapbook What I Say to You (proletaria.org, 2020). He lives in Portugal.

Butterfly Dream: Wedding Bells Haiku by Padmini Krishnan

English Original

wedding bells

the seat next to mine

empty yet again

Padmini Krishnan

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

婚禮鐘聲

我旁邊的座位

又空了

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

婚礼钟声

我旁边的座位

又空了

Bio Sketch

Padmini Krishnan was raised in India and now resides in Dubai, UAE. Her poems and short stories have appeared in Stonecrop Review, Page & Spine, tinywords, and The Literary Yard among others. Her e-chapbook, Pinewood Hills, was published in Proletaria.

One Man's Maple Moon: Boughs Tanka by Susan Weaver

English Original

if I'd really listened

what might she have told me

one bough

              scrapes another

in the wind

Ribbons, 16:2, Spring/Summer 2020

Susan Weaver

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

如果我真地用心聽了

她可能告訴我相關事情

一根樹枝

               刮傷另一根

在強風中

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

如果我真地用心听了

她可能告诉我相关事情

一根树枝

               刮伤另一根

在强风中

Bio Sketch

After a career as a magazine journalist specializing in bicycling and active travel, Susan Weaver began writing tanka in 2009. Her work appears regularly in Moonbathing, red lights, Ribbons, and elsewhere, and she is tanka prose editor of Ribbons. She lives in Pennsylvania with her landscape-painter husband and two cats.

Butterfly Dream: Mayan Temple Haiku by Garry Eaton

English Original

Mayan temple

a trickle of bats

at sunrise

Akita, "World Haiku Series," 2019

Garry Eaton

Chinese Translation (Traditional) 

瑪雅神廟

在

日出時

一串

串

蝙蝠飛出

來

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

玛雅神庙

在日出时一串串

蝙蝠飞出来

Bio Sketch

Garry Eaton was a Canadian poet from British Columbia. He started writing haiku in 2006 and was published occasionally in the major haiku magazines. He volunteered as the digital librarian for The Haiku Foundation Digital Library.

A Room of My Own: Inside Buckingham Tanka

inside Buckingham

nine men and women with arms linked

wear black T-shirts

with single, yellow letters 

declaring, Not My King

FYI: This tanka is a sequel to the concluding tanka below of my tanka sequence,The Coronation 

TamponGate Prince

one of Britain's richest men 

now crowned with praise

around the Palace's dark corner

open secrets of family feud

And this civic protest was the "first-ever" one inside Buckingham Palace. For more, CNN, September 23: "Anti-monarchy campaigners stage protest inside Buckingham Palace"

“The protest is the latest in a series of actions aimed at pushing forward the debate about the future of the monarchy,” Republic, Britain’s largest anti-monarchist group,  said in a statement.

The group said six of the activists involved were briefly detained by security, before being escorted out of the front gate.

Added: Re-Homing in the Maple Land, XIII

white-hot anger

on another rent hike ...

in this rooming house 

the diary is a place of my own

where I can live freely

Added:

these years of longing

for something 

I can't articulate ...

one stretch of books

on top of another

Added: Re-Homing in the Maple Land, XIV

this leafy path

once our lovers' lane

in dappled shade

a pair of white doves flying

over Private Property

Poetic Musings: Tundra Swans Tanka by Linda Jeannette Ward

for three dawns

the faint call of tundra swans

through a drifting mist --

once more I replay your

last message on my machine

                                     

Scent of Jasmine and Brine, 2007

Linda Jeannette Ward

Commentary: In this tanka Jeanette presents two sounds that are both opposed and linked. Opposed in that one sound is alive and animated (the tundra swans call), and the other is mechanised (a voice recording on an answering machine). Yet at the same time these sounds are linked by their haunting quality, and the inability to see or pin down the instigator of the sound.

-- excerpted from "To the Lighthouse: Sensing Tanka: Perceiving Life Beyond the Ordinary" by David Terelinck

Butterfly Dream: Empty Sky Haiku by Marilyn Humbert

English Original

empty sky

after the storm

silence

 

Autumn Moon Journal,  3:1, Autumn/Winter 2019-2020

Marilyn Humbert

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

空曠的天空

暴風雨過後

的靜默

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

空旷的天空

暴风雨过后

的静默

Bio Sketch

Marilyn Humbert lives in the Northern suburbs of Sydney NSW Australia. Her tanka and haiku appear in international and Australian journals, anthologies and online. Her free verse poems have been awarded prizes in competitions and some have been published.

One Man's Maple Moon: Morning Light-Fall Tanka by Sanford Goldstein

English Original

it was roosters

at morning light-fall --

how joyous

even that crack

diagonal

At the Hut of the Small Mind, 1992

Sanford Goldstein 

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

晨曦初現時

是公雞在啼叫 --

多麼快樂啊

即使牆上的那條裂縫

是對角線那麼長

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

晨曦初现时

是公鸡在啼叫 --

多么快乐啊

即使墙上的那条裂缝

是对角线那么长

Bio Sketch

Sanford Goldstein has published tanka for more than fifty years.  He was born in 1925 and passed away in May 2023. Long ago, he wrote haiku, but decided to focus on tanka. His latest books, three in the last two years, have each said this would be his last.

Butterfly Dream: Argument Haiku by Srinivasa Rao Sambangi

English Original

peak of argument

two gentlemen

slip to mother tongue

Cattails, October 2020

Srinivasa Rao Sambangi

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

爭論的高峰

兩位先生

轉換用母語辯白

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

争论的高峰

两位先生

转换用母语辩白

Bio Sketch

Srinivasa Rao Sambangi, a Master Black Belt in Six Sigma, is currently working in a pharma company in Hyderabad, India. His haiku are regularly published in all the leading haiku journals

One Man's Maple Moon: Wall Clock Tanka by Shuji Terayama

English Original

when I was walking

through the dreary field,

under my arm

a wall clock for sale

abruptly chimed  

Kaleidoscope, 2007 

Shuji Terayama

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

當我正在穿越

荒涼田野的時候

夾在我腋下

要出售的掛鐘

突然響起來

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

当我正在穿越

荒凉田野的时候

夹在我腋下

要出售的挂钟

突然响起来

 

 

Bio Sketch

The avant-garde stage and film director, poet, critic, author and founder of the experimental theater group Tenjo Sajiki, Shuji Terayama was born in 1935 in Aomori, Japan. He started writing tanka in his late teens and received the Tanka Kenkyu Award for Emerging Poets. He published several tanka collections before he stopped writing at the age of 30. Many of his tanka read more like scenes from a movie scene or short story. He died in 1983. The first English language collection of his tanka, Kaleidoscope, was published by The Hokuseido Press in 2008 to commemorate the 25th anniversary of  his death.

A Room of My Own: Raven Shadow Haiku

raven shadow

after raven shadow ...

blood-stained debris

FYI: This is the sequel to the following haiku:

collapse of mud houses ...

a girl closes her eyes at last

and the world ...disappears

NeverEnding Story, September 12 2023

Added:

a bomb crater ...

bits and pieces of clothing 

and patches of grass

FYI: This is the sequel to the following haiku:

spring counteroffensive ...

the buzzing sound 

of an old man's meat grinder

NeverEnding Story, May 22 2023

Added:

howl of the north wind ...

snow on snow on sunflowers

in a girl's drawing

FYI: This is the sequel to the following haiku:

bomb shelter wall

the girl draws a dove flying

to a field of sunflowers

NeverEnding Story, March 8 2022

Added:

aftermath ...

a girl's blood-smeared face 

in pixels

Butterfly Dream: Mountain Haiku by Patricia Donegan

English Original

halfway

up the mountain --

the silence

Haiku Studio, 1991

Patricia Donegan 

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

爬到

一半的山路 --

這靜默

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

爬到

一半的山路 --

这静默

Bio Sketch

Patricia Donegan (1945 -- 2023) led a life of creative exploration, meditation, writing, translating and teaching haiku, and teaching haiku. Three of her most famous books of haiku Love Haiku: Japanese Poems of Yearning, Passion & Remembrance (co-translated with Yoshie Ishibashi), Haiku Mind: 108 Poems to Cultivate Awareness and Open Your Heart, and Chiyo-ni Woman Haiku Master (co-translated with Yoshie Ishibashi). In 2017 she was named the honorary curator of the American Haiku Archives.

One Man's Maple Moon: Ozymandias Tanka by M. Kei

English Original

road signs

and cracked asphalt ... 

familiar things, 

yet I see

the face of Ozymandias

M. Kei

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

倒塌的路標

還有龜裂的瀝青路面...

這些熟悉的事物，

然而我看見

奧茲曼迪亞斯的臉

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

倒塌的路标

还有龟裂的沥青路面...

这些熟悉的事物，

然而我看见

奥兹曼迪亚斯的脸

Bio Sketch

M. Kei is a tall ship sailor and award-winning poet who lives on Maryland’s Eastern shore. He is the editor of Atlas Poetica: A Journal of World Tanka. His most recent collection of poetry is January, A Tanka Diary. He is also the author of the award-winning gay Age of Sail adventure novels, Pirates of the Narrow Seas. He can be followed on Twitter @kujakupoet, or visit AtlasPoetica.org.